Matthew Lawrence Clarifies His Comments About Starting a Family With TLC’s Chilli

Matthew Lawrence is clearing up his comments about wanting to start a family with girlfriend Chilli one day. The Boy Meets World alum, 43, recently shared his hopes about possibly having a child with the 52-year-old TLC artist (real name Rozonda Thomas) but clarified to E! News the timeline behind those hopes in a new interview. 

“It’s such an interesting story,” he said, adding of older brother Joey Lawrence, “Joe and I were commiserating about this plan that we had to have children together…when we were growing up. And I missed the first go around and now he’s starting a new family and I was thinking, ‘Man, it’d be great if we could do it again, when I didn’t have the chance to raise a family together.’”

“So that’s what I meant by that,” Matthew explained. “I didn’t mean to put any pressure on somebody I was dating or anything.” The Brotherly Love star emphasized that he still thinks Chilli, who shares son Tron, 25, with ex Dallas Austin, would be an “incredible” partner to start a family with if those plans did eventually happen. “She’s an amazing person,” he gushed. “She’s already a mother, she has an incredible son. I respect so much as to how she’s raised him. She’d be an incredible mother again and I’d be incredibly lucky but that’s way in the future.”

After Matthew made comments about possibly starting a family with Chilli following their public debut as a couple in January, the actor’s ex-wife, Cheryl Burke, said she was in full support of the decision. “He comes from a huge family and there were definitely conversations but I always had said, ‘As long as I had to shove my body in a dance costume, me thinking about being pregnant probably isn’t something I can talk about at the moment,’” the Dancing With the Stars pro said in the March 9 episode of The Most Dramatic Podcast Ever With Chris Harrison. “But yes, there were discussions about freezing my eggs.”

Burke, who was married to Lawrence from 2019 to September 2022, when they finalized their divorce, added, “I really truly hope he can actually have a kid with Chili. I think that’s amazing. I think he’s wanted that.” The dancer added that she’s still a huge TLC fan to this day, and while she’s “not going to a concert,” she’ll “still sing along to the song ‘No Scrubs.’”